Love at the First Taste
by bellagill92
Summary: Wonderful things become even better when you have someone special to share them with. AU where the child-slaves successfully escaped the Tower of Heaven during the rebellion. Jerza Week 2015 Day 1 - Roses/Strawberries


**A/N: To be terribly honest, I am not particularly proud of how this fic turned out - I just find it a bit... _meh_. But since it was finished and it's Jerza Week, I figured that why not...**

 **This fic is part of my AU series which started with 'Good Deeds'. Although this one takes place chronologically first, I would advise that you read Good Deeds first for the sake of understanding the universe this takes place in. Basically, the kids of the Tower of Heaven escaped with Erza. At this point of the story, Erza and Jellal are 11 years-old.**

 **Anyway, Happy Jerza Week, everyone!**

 **x776**

"What is that?" Erza asked, looking at the bowl full of red fruit-like things in front of Jellal. She had just arrived from a trip to Porlyusica's house to see about her new eye and had come back to the guild only to find the boy in question waiting for her.

"They're called strawberries," Jellal replied. "It's the first I have heard of them. Don't be fooled by the name, though. Apparently they have nothing to do with straw. Which seems silly because if they don't, then why even name them _straw_ berries?"

Erza shrugged, sitting across the table from him. "I don't know. There's probably a story behind it."

"I guess… so, you hadn't seen these before either?" Jellal asked.

Erza shook her head. "Not that I remember. Maybe they didn't grow where I lived before…"

The conversation suddenly ceased at the mention of before. Before the nightmare of the tower… It had been a month since they'd finally woken up from it through their escape and three weeks since the Master, Ur and Gildarts had come to collect them from the shelter (basically consisting of a large, cold tent-like pavilion at the beach where their boats had first docked at) that the Magic Council had kept them in while waiting for orphanages and guilds to come and collect them like dogs at a pound. The memories from hell were still quite fresh and a touchy subject for them.

"Sorry," Erza mumbled.

Jellal shook his head and smiled, trying to seem completely above it even though it really was not. "It's okay! You didn't say anything wrong," he reassured her. Still, when he spoke again, he made a point of changing the subject. "So, what did the forest broom lady say about your eye? Will it take very long for her to give you a new one?"

His colorful nickname for the guild's medical advisor was mostly based upon their first meeting. Concerned about Erza, he had accompanied her and the Master on the first time she had gone to the woman in order to see what could be done about her eye… and then, he might or might not have been a little too eager to ask questions which in turn might or might not have annoyed the reclusive woman to the point of kicking him out with the help of a broomstick. Ever since then, he had been given strict orders not to show up again unless he was dangerously close to death.

Erza shook her head. "No. It's almost done – she just wanted to make sure the measurements were right and that the eye color matched," she said. The thought of getting a new eye still made her feel strange. She knew that her real one was not something she could recover but getting a new one was a little… icky. She wondered if it would hurt or if it would let her see as well as the old one did. When she has asked Porlyusica about that, the woman had just scoffed and said that once she had one of her eyes on, she'd want the other one replaced as well, something Erza was vehemently against, no matter how great a vision the new one might provide. It just didn't seem right…

"So, what do you plan to do once you have both eyes again?" Jellal asked curiously. "I think that if I ever lost an eye and then got it back, I'd want to go around seeing all sorts of cool sights with it to make up for the lost time."

"I haven't been without an eye for _that_ long," she pointed out.

"You've been long enough!" he said. As far as he was concerned, it shouldn't have happened in the first place. Every single hour that had passed ever since her eye had been lost had been one hour too many. "But I guess nobody would let us go off on own as we are now," he pointed out. His magic still showed no signs of appearing and Erza's was just starting to develop. They still had a long way to go…

She sighed down. "Yeah… That's one of the reasons why I think that once I get it I'll start training really hard to get stronger. I'm the only one of us whose magic has shown so far – that means that it's my job to protect you until you get yours too." She owed that much to Grandpa Rob, after all, since he had given his life for hers.

Jellal frowned a little. He didn't like to see Erza pressuring herself that way. Still, he went with it because it seemed important to her. "I'm sure you won't be the only one with magic for too long… but until mine shows itself, I'll help you making yours stronger any way I can. That's okay, right?"

Her face reddened a little. "If you want to…"

"Why wouldn't I?"

His certainly sounded so… _certain_ that she couldn't help but feel a little embarrassed by it. As her face reddened further, she forced herself to look away, making it seem like she was looking for someone… and when she noticed a certain number of absences from the guild, she had to raise her eyebrows and start looking indeed. "Where are the others, anyway?" she asked, concerning their own little group.

"Simon is talking to the Master in his office. As for the others, Richard took a job request at a candy shop. They're convinced he's going to get paid in candy, so they're standing by to see if he'll share. I already told them that I don't think he will but they want to see if he does anyway."

Erza couldn't help but giggle at her friend's antics and Jellal grinned back, although not quite due to being amused by his own story as well – mostly, he was entranced by Erza's laughter. She didn't laugh enough these days… or even smiled enough, really. Sure, their lives were better and they had more reasons to smile these days than they had had at any day in the past few years, but she didn't quite allow herself to relax enough to _really_ enjoy it like the others did. Simon had commented that maybe she still felt guilty about Grandpa Rob because she'd lived and he hadn't and apparently people could feel bad just about that kind of thing. Jellal didn't think that she should feel that way and Simon had agreed when he'd said it, but he'd still stated that maybe they should still give her time to get through it.

"So, don't you like them?" he heard her asking, breaking him away from his thoughts.

"Like what?" he asked in confusion.

"Those red things. Straw-something-or-others," she told him. "You still have a lot of them left but you haven't been eating them."

"Oh, the strawberries," he said, just recalling. "Those aren't for me," he informed her, moving the bowl in her direction. "They're for you."

She blinked for a moment, barely able to react. "F… for me?!" she questioned, her cheeks coloring again, that time in a much more obvious fashion.

Jellal nodded, utterly oblivious to the connection between the red of her face and the possibility that she might be a bit… embarrassed. The Master was still working on getting him to understand that kind of thing – all that time imprisoned in the tower seemed to have limited his comprehension of social cues. Things like unwittingly embarrassing others or invading their personal space seemed to just go past him these days. "Apparently, they ordered too many of them at the bar, so they were giving them away for free since they wouldn't last very long before they spoiled. The guys and I still managed to get some but they ran out before we could get any for you, so I figured I'd save you some of mine so you could try something new too."

She looked practically incandescent – if a drop of water touched her skin, it would surely evaporate instantly. "You d-didn't have t-to," she stuttered.

"Well, I might not have to, but I _wanted_ to. Now, go on – try one. They're really good."

There he was again, being all sure and considerate to a disconcerting level. She chewed on her lip nervously and looked down at the bowlful of strawberries in front of her, observing them closely. They looked appetizing but those little dots that looked like seeds on the outside were confusing her a little. "How are they eaten? Are we supposed to peel them?"

Jellal shook his head. "No. Everyone was just biting into them and that's what I did too. The only part that you're not supposed to eat is those green leaves on top. They're just there for you to pick them up or something. So, go ahead – try them."

She nodded a little hesitantly and, as instructed, picked one up by the green stem, lifting it up towards her mouth. Opening it, she bit down on the bottom part of the strawberry, chewed once, then twice and then… her eyes widened in shock. The rest of the strawberry actually dropped from her hand, falling back into the bowl.

Jellal seemed alarmed by that. "Erza? Are you okay?" he asked, concerned. "Don't you like them? If you don't, that's okay – I guess people just have different tastes… just spit them out of something. I won't be offended or anything!"

But then… chew, chew, chew, _swallow_. And finally… "This is the best thing I have ever eaten," she declared in a seemingly-haunted whisper. Heaven had exploded into her mouth. It felt like she was having a religious experience – celestial harps were even playing in her head. It was like her life from before had ended and her life from now has just started… previously 'before strawberries', now 'after strawberries'. She felt like weeping with joy.

The blue-haired boy raised an eyebrow, mostly because her eyes were _actually_ watering. That was a reaction _completely_ against Erza's general behavior. "Oh my God, are you going to cry? Please don't!" he hated seeing her crying.

"I can't help it. _They're just so good, Jellal!_ " she said dramatically, picking up the half-eaten strawberry again and giving it another bite. "They're perfect…"

Wait, so she was crying out of joy? That was… interesting. He could definitely live with indirectly making her weep with joy. Still, such a strong reaction to the fruit… it was good, he guessed but not that overwhelmingly good, as far as he could tell. Then again, tastes were tastes and to each their own. And if strawberries were capable of making Erza happy to the point of being unable to hold tears in…

"Jellal…" he heard her saying, prompting him to look up at her. She was smiling, just like he wanted her to – his head was filled with shouts of victory. "Thank you for saving these for me."

"Oh, it was nothing. Now I'm _really_ glad that I did," he told her, smiling back. "And hey, did you know those can be baked into cakes? Just a while before you came, Gildarts passed by and told me that you haven't really eaten strawberries until you've had them in the cake they serve at the bakery. Apparently it's really good."

Her eyes widened and she got up suddenly. "Take me to it."

He raised an eyebrow. Boy, those strawberries were having some strange effect on her. "Don't you want to finish those first?" he asked, nodding at her bowl.

She looked down too and appeared alarmed for a second. "Oh, right. I forgot for a moment," she admitted as she sat down. After a silent apology for her neglect, she picked another one up and ate it.

He chuckled in amusement

"So their name is strawberry, you said…" she mumbled after reaching for a third. She held it in front of her eyes, observing it reverently. "I don't think I will forget this name again."

"Neither will I," Jellal assured her.

As long as it was a reason for Erza to smile, he would never, _ever_ forget it.

 **The End**


End file.
